Notes on Discipleship

131 Pages·2013·0.75 MB·English

by  Calvin Odhner

Be of good cheer,I have overcome the world…
SENDING HIS ANGELS Rev. KENNETH O.
STROH 1964
1.Now these twelve disciples, who later were sent forth
throughout the whole spiritual world, were also called
apostles, because an apostle is a person who is sent out
to teach what the Word tells about the Lord, about the
life of religion, and about heaven. So, today, those who
teach and preach the Word are apostles. Ministers are
apostles. Of course, not all people can be apostles. Not
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all people can be ministers, preachers, or teachers of
truth. But all can and should be disciples of the Lord,
because a disciple is a person who follows Him, listens
to what He says, and learns from Him. When these
twelve men followed the Lord, they were called
disciples; but when they were sent out to preach and
teach they were called apostles. Perhaps some of you
children will become apostles when you grow up. But all
of you can and should be disciples, for the Lord has
called you all; and you can be disciples now.
How can you become one of the Lord's disciples? A
disciple is a person who is learning things, especially the
things which are taught in the Word and which are called
truths. The truths of the Word show us how to live as the
angels do in heaven. They teach us the Ten
Commandments, and tell us how to learn to love the
Lord. They tell us not to hate and want revenge, but to
love others. For the Lord said: "By this shall all men know
that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another."
Also, the Word promises that those who become disciples
of the Lord will have deep happiness while they live in
this world, and that afterwards they will become angels
in heaven.
Wouldn't you like to be a disciple of the Lord?
Wouldn't you like to be like those twelve men who went
throughout the whole spiritual world to spread the news
of the Lord's second coming? The Lord calls each one of
you to be His disciple; and you can be one if you try to
listen carefully when the Word is being read, if you learn
to read it for yourself, and especially if you do what the
Lord says is true and good, no matter how hard it might
seem.
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For then you will be following the Lord. You will be with
Him. You will be His disciple, and He will speak to you
from His Word. For He said:
"If ye continue in My word, then are ye My disciples
indeed: and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall
make you free." Amen.
LESSON: Matthew 24:1-14, 29-31 DISCIPLES AND
APOSTLES Editor 1964
"A disciple is one who learns; an apostle is one who,
having been instructed, is sent to teach others what he
himself has been taught." The distinction here made is
basic and is useful for children, but it does not convey the
full meaning of discipleship. By definition, a disciple is
more than one who receives instruction from another; he
is one who also accepts the doctrines of his teacher,
becomes his follower, and assists in spreading his
teachings. Thus discipleship implies personal adherence
to the master's doctrines: an implication that becomes
clear when we say of someone that he was another's
pupil and remained his disciple.
When we turn to the Gospels, the fuller meaning of
discipleship at once becomes evident. As the conditions
for becoming His disciples the Lord said that men must
hate their life, that is, their proprial life; forsake all,
namely, the things of self and the world that meant all to
them; and bear their cross, by which is meant to enter
into temptations. He added that they should be His
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disciples if they bore much fruit; and He spoke of the
bearing of love one towards another as the sign by which
it should be known that men were His disciples.
Evidently, then, much more is involved than learning the
Lord's teachings; although to be taught by the Lord in the
Word comprehends all that is involved.
To be a student of the Writings is not necessarily to be
the Lord's disciple! The Lord's doctrines all look to the
good of life; His leading is to the same end; and to
accept His doctrines, adhere to them and follow Him is to
learn and try to understand His teachings for the sake of
life, to see their application to one's uses, and then
translate them into action. It is also to spread those
teachings wherever it seems that they may be received.
Only to the priesthood is it given to preach the gospel,
but in this deeper sense all in the church should become
the Lord's disciples. That, indeed, is what regeneration is;
and the becoming is the work of a lifetime of devotion.
"Here am I; send me," as each person knelt to be
reminded, with the laying on of hands, of the Lord's
commission as recorded in Matthew 28:19,20: "Go into
all the world and make disciples of all nations . . . . "
DISCIPLES AND APOSTLES Editor 1964
"A disciple is one who learns; an apostle is one who,
having been instructed, is sent to teach others what he
himself has been taught." The distinction here made is
basic and is useful for children, but it does not convey the
full meaning of discipleship. By definition, a disciple is
more than one who receives instruction from another; he
is one who also accepts the doctrines of his teacher,
becomes his follower, and assists in spreading his
teachings. Thus discipleship implies personal adherence
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to the master's doctrines: an implication that becomes
clear when we say of someone that he was another's
pupil and remained his disciple.
When we turn to the Gospels, the fuller meaning of
discipleship at once becomes evident. As the conditions
for becoming His disciples the Lord said (where is the
quote here?)that men must hate their life, that is, their
proprial life; forsake all, namely, the things of self and
the world that meant all to them; and bear their
cross, by which is meant to enter into
temptations. He added that they should be His
disciples if they bore much fruit; and He spoke of
the bearing of love one towards another as
the sign by which it should be known that
men were His disciples. Evidently, then,
much more is involved than learning
the Lord's teachings;
although to be taught by
the Lord in the Word comprehends all that is involved.
To be a student of the Writings is not necessarily to be
the Lord's disciple! The Lord's doctrines all look to the
good of life; His leading is to the same end; and to
accept His doctrines, adhere to them and follow Him is to
learn and try to understand His teachings for the sake of
life, to see their application to one's uses, and then
translate them into action. It is also to spread those
teachings wherever it seems that they may be received.
Only to the priesthood is it given to preach the gospel,
but in this deeper sense all in the church should become
the Lord's disciples. That, indeed, is what regeneration is;
and the becoming is the work of a lifetime of devotion.
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SPIRITUAL MAN AND THE
WORLD Editor 1969
In His teaching as recorded in the Gospels the Lord
made self-denial an essential condition of discipleship. He
also emphasized the necessity of forsaking all-family,
lands and houses-for His sake, and of taking the cross
and following Him. A literal reading of these teachings,
especially one influenced by the Hellenic concept of
matter as evil, led in the Christian Church to the doctrine
and practice of asceticism. Rome exalted the monastic
life with its vows of poverty, chastity and obedience as
the ideal. Protestantism never went as far, but it did
succeed in making men feel uneasy about the allure of
the world. The world and the flesh were linked with the
devil, and the three were seen as an unholy trinity that
sought unceasingly to lure men from the straight and
narrow way leading to heaven.
Yet the scriptural view, to which Christianity was
committed, is that the world is God's creation-a creation
of which it is said that in His eyes "behold, it was very
good"; and nowhere in the Writings are the love of
heaven and the love of the world presented as mutually
exclusive. Rather are we taught that the love of heaven,
the love of the world and the love of self are the three
universal loves into which man was created, and that
when they are rightly subordinated-as in that series-they
perfect man. Without the loves of self and the world, man
would have no concern for his bodily health, no desire for
food, clothing and habitation, no solicitude for his family,
no interest in finding and keeping employment. He would
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have no appreciation of beauty in nature, no beauty in
his life, no delight in worldly enjoyments.
Rightly subordinated, the loves of self and the world
are loves of the natural man which are serviceable to
spiritual loves, as a foundation is to a house; and from
the inner presence of the love of heaven they are indeed,
as they were from creation, heavenly loves; for through
their proper exercise man is in a state to serve the Lord
and the neighbor. Therefore we are taught that the
spiritual man does love the world, but as a master loves
his servant through whom he performs uses. So in
constructing a hierarchy of values we should neither be
led astray by false values or self-deceived. The world is
not evil; evil always lies in perversion. It is not the love
of self and the world that is evil, but the love of self more
than the Lord and of the world more than heaven.
However, we need to be as certain as we can of what our
priorities are, for these loves can easily persuade that
they are serving higher ends when in fact they are not.
So we should examine our purposes in the light of the
Word, which teaches and leads to heaven.
DISCIPLES, APOSTLES, AND SPIRITUAL
FISHERMEN Rev. LOUIS B. KING 1992
1991 ACADEMY COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS
Disciples, apostles, spiritual fishermen! Every person
in this room is one or the other of these. If we look over
to this side of the room, to our graduates from the
Secondary Schools, we have disciples. They are students
and followers of the truth. At the Academy they have
received a wonderful education, both academically and in
the doctrines of the New Church. Without exception they
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are creative, productive individuals, prepared to be of use
to society wherever they go from this point.
On the other side of the podium we have graduates
from the junior and senior colleges, receiving advanced
degrees in studies that have prepared them for
professional life. They can be likened to apostles or
teachers. At this stage in their development, their
discipleship or following of the auth can now be
expressed in professional relationships with others,
affecting for good and from a New Church point of view
everyone with whom they have any contact.
Beyond these candidates for degrees we have our
Theological School graduates who will receive their
masters of divinity today, followed by inauguration into
the priesthood of the New Church at the cathedral service
tomorrow morning. They are about to become spiritual
fishermen. The Writings define spiritual fishermen as
those who teach spiritual truth in rational form.
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Let's think about the Lord's own example. He
passed through a stage of discipleship,
apostleship and spiritual fisherman. He was born
into the world that He might save us, and for thirty silent
years, in Galilee, He performed a wonderful work within
Himself. The Divine love which created us was His soul,
clothed in a physical body received from the virgin Mary.
Into His human mind He gathered scientific knowledges
founded upon nature, and He read and understood the
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Divine truth contained in the Old Testament, which the
Jewish Church had rejected. In short, He experienced the
first and most perfect example of New Church education,
New Church education is an opening of the mind to
receive and bring together the Lord's love, the spheres of
good and truth in the heavens, and knowledges which
enter from the written Word and from nature through the
senses. The Lord had both a Divine nature and a human
nature, which He willed to unite into one. The hells
attacked Him and tried to prevent this union of the Divine
and the Human in Himself. But the Lord rejected their
efforts and in so doing induced an order upon all the
inhabitants of the hells.
The heavens, which were threatened with extinction
because they had no New Church upon which to rest,
zeroed in on the Lord's mind Here they found a perfect
joining together of Divine love and wisdom with human
experience and conscious thought and affection. As the
Lord successively made His human Divine, He supplied an
eternal foundation for the heavens for all time.
It is the goal of New Church education to bring the
Divine of the Lord through the heavens so that innocence
and joy may enter our lives. The hells would oppose this
bringing together of the Lord's Divine Human with our
developing conscience, but with the Lord's help we can
overcome the hells.
A final work of redemption on the Lord's part was the
teaching of the truth, now contained in the New
Testament, to establish His kingdom on earth. This was
His public ministry or apostleship.
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In the Writings where His Divine Human is available to all
who would worship Him in spirit and in truth, the Lord
becomes our Divine Fisherman who teaches us spiritual
truth in rational form. Indeed, the Lord fulfilled His
discipleship during those thirty silent years before His
public ministry. His Human became the pupil and follower
of His Divinity within. Gradually the Divine and Human
natures in the Lord became one Divine Human. During
His public ministry, He fulfilled His apostleship, teaching
the truth of the New Testament so that the Christian
Church might be established. When at His second coming
He revealed the spiritual sense of the Word so that it
could be taught in rational form, He became the Divine
Fisherman to eternity.
What about the twelve disciples? They were called by
the Lord to leave their profession as fishermen that they
might become fishers of men. For three years they were
with the Lord day and night, listening to His teachings,
observing His examples and learning to obey His
commandments. Truly they were disciples-students and
followers.
Then suddenly all hell broke loose. In their final attack
upon the Lord, the hells appeared to be successful in
destroying Him, since He died on the cross. The disciples
were terrified and disillusioned and would have deserted
Him. But the Lord opened their spiritual eyes and ears so
that they could feel His tender touch and hear His gentle
voice, "Peace! Be not afraid for I am with you always."
This is also the message of the senior class banner.
The Lord encouraged them to become teachers-
apostles who would comprise the first Christian ministry.
Faithfully for the next thirty to sixty years they taught
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